


under the red neon glow

by KnightsQueen



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Based mostly on S1 characterizations, Choking, Dom Bellamy, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fingering, Jealousy, Protectiveness, Rockstar!Bellamy, Semi-Public Sex, aggressive bellamy, everything else, music exec!clarke
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 23:58:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18839452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KnightsQueen/pseuds/KnightsQueen
Summary: “Unbelievable. I guess this is what I get for trying to make it in a male-dominated music industry. Babysitter duty for a washed-up, grubby, hungover, has-been rockstar who doesn’t seem to own a shirt.”Wildly unconcerned, Bellamy stretches out on the destroyed hotel couch, kicks his feet up onto the white leather arm, pushes his sunglasses onto his face, and grabs the vodka bottle from the floor.“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Griffin,” he says, and takes a long drink. “I’m not hungover. I’m still drunk.”*or; Bellamy Blake is a fading rockstar on a path of sex and alcohol fueled self-destruction.Clarke Griffin is the junior music exec assigned to travel with him until she gets him back on track—whatever it takes.





	under the red neon glow

**Author's Note:**

> no lie, this started out with a simple m-rating and then I got...inspired.

He forces his eyes open, and his world is _blonde_. Everywhere.

_Lovely._

It takes him a moment of clawing his way out of unconsciousness to understand that there is a swath of long, blonde hair over his face, obscuring his vision. After a night like what he just had, when the room is spinning the way it is, it’s not exactly easy to recognize that you’re laying on your back with a warm body at your side.

He shifts. Scratch that, two warm bodies. One on either side of him.

Bellamy smirks beneath the hair covering his face.

He fucking loves groupies.

Taking a deep breath, he squeezes his eyes shut and tries to stop the room from this wild spinning; as he does, he breathes in the girl’s hair. In any other instance, he imagines he would smell coconut, strawberries, lavender, but right now, all he can smell is vodka and gin and champagne. It soaks the room, the girls, his bed, his memories. A blurry show, a blacked-out after party, and presumably, some great sex, based on the pleasant ache in his muscles and the scent rolling off their bodies.

With enough focus, Bellamy turns the gyrations of his hotel suite into a mild wobble, and he’s able to sit up from between the two sleeping, naked, beautiful women on either side of him. Their legs and arms twisted in the silk sheets, hair splayed out over the scattered pillows. He doesn’t remember their names, but does that really matter? But despite this, Bellamy is careful not to wake them as he gently edges off the bottom of the Cal King bed. He watches their faces for signs that their serene dreams have been disturbed, and when neither girl stirs, he pads silently out of the bedroom.

Sure, he fucked them until they forgot their own names last night. That doesn’t mean he isn’t a gentleman in the morning. He’ll even order room service.

Out in the main hotel suite, more of last night begins to return to him as he surveys the destruction. There’s a pool of tequila on the coffee table and shriveled lime slices beneath it--that was where he was doing body shots off one of the women currently in his bed. Miller had busted that lamp when he swung his bass guitar around, Murphy had one-upped him by throwing a cross-suite Hail Mary with a vase, and broken pieces of both are scattered about the floor. Empty bottles lay everywhere, a table has been upturned, and there are at least five sets of lingerie hanging off various pieces of furniture. At least one pair of those panties, he took off with his teeth.

Bellamy never wakes up to regrets the next morning. He’s physically incapable of regretting anything. He loves every minute of it.

And now, he stands in the middle of it all, proud The prodigal son looking over his kingdom, well-earned with his guitar and voice.

But right now, his voice is hoarse and instead of heading toward his guitar, sitting on a shelf, his practiced inebriation pushes him toward the wet bar. He strolls across the room, bare feet slapping against the cold marble tile, and catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror above the minibar: he’s completely naked, even in front of the open curtains. The height of this Vegas penthouse suite provides all the privacy he needs. Lipstick and bite marks trail down over his abs and the tops of his thighs, rippling over his tan skin as his muscles tense and flex. Not a bad look. Maybe he’ll have to start collecting tattoos soon.

Running his fingers back through his messy, long curls, he grabs an open bottle of champagne from the wet bar and stands at the window, sipping it straight from the bottle to wash the taste of last night out of his mouth. The Las Vegas Strip sprawls our beneath him from his penthouse suite, his playground for the past three nights. Maybe he’ll make it four, or five. A week. Who cares.

But for now, the sunlight is too damn bright. He draws the curtains and throws on a pair of sunglasses he finds on a table nearby.

Bellamy’s fingers also find something far more enticing than the champagne in his fist: a half-empty bottle of vodka in an ice bucket. He grins. Just what he needs to take the edge off. It’s a gift of God, to be sure, that there’s any alcohol left at all. He distinctly remembers Shaw gathering up armfuls of bottles and leaving the hotel suite with more than three women in tow. Bellamy grins, reminds himself to applaud Shaw for that, and switches bottles.

And of course, the moment he settles into his white leather couch with drink in hand, someone starts banging on the hotel door.

“Mr. Blake? Are you alive? Please get up, it is after 2 pm!”

The woman’s voice is entirely unfamiliar—in both who it belongs to and it’s annoyed, demanding tone. He frowns, resolves to ignore it, and takes a drink. He stretches out over the couch and coffee table, still completely naked save his Raybans.

“Mr. Blake, I have been waiting all morning and I’m not leaving this time!”

Bellamy groans. “What do you want?” he calls.

“Open this door!”

Sighing, Bellamy drops his head back onto the couch. He has half a mind to swing open his hotel door without dressing first and let this girl see exactly why he shouldn’t be disturbed, but something about the strength of her voice through the door forces him to compromise. He finds his boxers from last night and throws them on as he strides across the room to throw open the door.

“What?” He demands, and almost instantly regrets all of it.

In a tight black dress and black high heels, the gorgeous blonde woman standing in front of him would not be out of place in a Fortune 500 board room; and with the way that dress hugs the curves of her breasts and those heels add six inches to her legs, she also would not be out of place in the center spread of Maxim, provided someone tugged that neckline down a few inches and pulled her hair out of its tight up-do.

Most importantly, Bellamy realizes, this girl would not look out of place sitting on his lap with his hands running up her thighs to push the hemline of that dress out of the way.

His immediate physical reaction to that thought suddenly makes him glad he chose to wear loose boxers--they do a much better job at hiding the way he twitched. God forbid he had gone with the plan to wear nothing at all.

What does look out of place, unfortunately for him, is the dark scowl on this woman’s face.

He considers every approach and picks the one that requires zero tact: “I’m gonna be upfront and tell you that I hope to _God_ you’re an escort.”

She takes a breath for a sharp reply, then stops and wrinkles her nose. “Jesus. No shower this morning?”

“You’re lucky I’m even vertical.”

She looks him up and down, eyebrow raising. And for a half second, as her gaze lingers somewhere around his waist, he thinks he sees that scowl vanish. He glances down too.

Yeah, he’ll need a much larger pair of boxers if he’s going to try to hide anything. Then again, he’s not really sure they make them large enough. It’s never been a problem until now, though: if he’s just wearing boxers in front of someone, it’s because he wants them to see. This is the first time he shouldn’t.

For some reason, though, this situation doesn’t really bother him.

The woman snaps her eyes back to his face and keeps them there now, adopting a cold professionalism that both alarms him and turns him on.

“No, I’m not an escort, and I’m not lucky to get to talk to you either,” she tells him. “My name is Clarke Griffin, Junior Executive producer from New Ground Records.”

Weird. He didn’t hear anything from Murphy about a label check-up. “Bellamy Blake. Wolves at Midnight.”

She rolls her eyes. “I know who you are.”

“Still,” he says with another pull from the bottle. “Mom taught me to be respectful.”

“And this is how you show respect?” Clarke asks. “Answering the door naked?”

Bellamy shrugs and jerks his thumb over his shoulder at his open bedroom door, through which the still sleeping girls are just visible. “They enjoyed it.” He smirks at the way Clarke flushes pink and averts her eyes. She’s sort of cute. His dick twitches a second time and again, he wishes he had larger boxers. At least she seems determined not to look down anymore.

But the room is beginning to spin like it was before. Accordingly, Bellamy turns on his heel and strides away from the door, calling out to Clarke over his shoulder. “Anyway, if you don’t like it, and if you’re not an escort, I’ve got two gorgeous women to attend to. You can just take up any band business with Murphy.”

The click of her heels on the marble floor, following him into his suite, gives him a strange, deep satisfaction for a reason he can’t name. He loves high heels.

Until she calls out something that shocks him.

“Murphy’s been fired.”

Bellamy stops in his tracks. “What?”

“The label fired him this morning,” Clarke says simply.

“Why? Murphy has been managing the band since we were in high school.”

Clarke is unsympathetic. “Because you missed a scheduled interview with a local morning show. Your call time was 5am.”

Sighing, Bellamy points to his bedroom. “Yeah, that was never going to happen. I was having sex at 5am.”

Clarke purses her lips together.

“Plus, I thought that morning show thing was yesterday.”

“It was,” she presses. “You missed yesterday too. They rescheduled it for today. That’s why he’s been fired.”

Her words cleave through him and a pang of guilt—an uncharacteristic emotion—wracks his body. With his back to her, he’s allowed to wince and admonish himself. But by the time he turns to face her, he has successfully resolved his face into his famous aloof, arrogant smirk, and all he can offer Clarke is a shrug.

“Send the morning show people tickets or something, I guess. I’ll get them next time I’m in Vegas. Can you schedule that for me, Princess?”

“I don’t work for you, don’t give me orders,” Clarke snaps. “Or nicknames.”

Bellamy grits his teeth; he’s not in any state to deal with some snappy young woman’s uptight attitude. “Listen, sweetheart, if you’re not here to fuck me, negotiate with me, or replace Murphy as my manager, I’m struggling to see why you’re still wasting my time right now.”

She’s at his throat before he can react, thanks to the vodka in his blood—even with those five inch heels, Clarke is only eye level with his nose, and yet she still manages to impose herself to the point where he even takes a step back.

“I don’t work for you, I work for the label that you signed a contract with. The label that has put money into your career. The label that is expecting an album and a tour. Not a sex tape and a stint in rehab. I—are you even listening to me?”

She reaches forward and pushes the sunglasses up onto his forehead, incredulous. His eyes are closed.

“I mean, I bucked up a little bit at “sex tape” but since it didn’t sound like you were offering, I drifted off. I’m going to be honest with you, Griffin, I don’t take orders well.”

“Well you better pull your shit together,” Clarke growls. Bellamy stares at her, bored. “The label is pissed. Wolves at Midnight was huge. _Is_ huge. You went from singing, songwriting, and playing guitar for one of the hottest indie rock bands in the last ten years, to falling off stages and crashing Lamborghinis for fun, and we’re not sitting idly by anymore. This is an intervention.”

“In my defense, the insurance said fault was 50/50.”

“Yes, fifty percent your fault and fifty percent Zeke Shaw’s fault, in the other Lamborghini. That makes it 100% your band’s fault, because you’re a bunch of irresponsible immature children with too much money.”

God damn, she’s insufferable. Pretty girls who are this insufferable are a curse, and apparently, Bellamy Blake has finally run out of his charmed good luck. He is now cursed with Clarke Griffin, and her bright blue eyes, and her body, and the quietly cocky quirk of her eyebrow as she stands up to him, and the fact that he’s gotten hard just looking at her, even as they argue, closer and closer—

“So is that what they sent you here for?” He asks finally, to clear his head and try to get some of the blood back up where he needs it to be, rather than where he wants it to be. “To keep me from wrecking supercars and falling off stages? To put me back in line, churning out money like a good little soldier? Because let me tell you, Princess—“

“Exactly,” Clarke replies, to his surprise. “That’s exactly what they sent me here for. You have a contract, Bellamy. I am their last attempt to get you to honor that contract before they take you to court and ruin your career. That’s why I’m here.”

She looks around as Bellamy turns his back on her, throwing his hands up in the air. “And you know what?” she adds suddenly. “It starts now, with _them_.”

He doesn’t know what Clarke means until she’s in the bedroom, banging on the doorframe. “All right, up, up, both of you!” she shouts. Bellamy hisses an obscenity and races after her, but it’s too late. His two girls are sitting up groggily. “Mr. Blake has work to do,” Clarke informs them. “You both need to get out or I’ll have security remove you. A cab will be waiting by the time you get down to the lobby but it won’t wait long, so hurry.”

Bellamy reaches the door, exasperated. “Okay, come on. One, I don’t have security. _I’m_ security. Look at me. Think anyone fucks with me? And two, you don’t need to wake them like that, I could have done it.”

Clarke just glares at him. They stand in the doorway, eyes locked together in a battle of wills, as the two women nervously dress and hurry out of the hotel suite.

Once the door shuts behind them, Bellamy relents. “That was rude.”

“You’ll live.”

Bellamy huffs in annoyance and stomps past Clarke, drinking more vodka as he goes.

“That was a _start_ ,” Clarke says, following him. “I have a multi-step plan for getting you back on track, and you’re going to follow it, or I’ll make your life hell, believe me. My job is on the line too, as much as yours.”

Bellamy shrugs, unconcerned, and flops onto the couch as Clarke launches into her spiel. She paces back and forth as she speaks.

“First, we’re getting out of Vegas. It’s way too tempting for you. I’ve chartered the label’s private jet to take us to Denver tonight. Second—“

“I don’t want to go to Denver.”

She frowns. “That’s your hometown.”

“I know. I don’t want to go.” No smirking, no arrogance. Not even an explanation. Just flat refusal.

Clarke chews her lip in thought. “How about Seattle?”

“Fine.” Bellamy relaxes again, and resumes his disinterest.

She starts off slow, uncertain as she tries to puzzle out his sudden shift. “Second, we’re postponing show dates and scheduled events for a month. Third...” she wrinkles her nose at him again. “You’re going to shower and shave that awful thing you have on your face.”

And Bellamy objects again. “What thing? What’s wrong with the beard?”

“Because we’re in the music industry and you’re the frontman of your band. The image of it. If we’re getting this back on track, it means we’re using every tool at our disposal: you’re going to cut your hair, shave that ugly beard, stop looking like Dollar Store Jesus, and get girls throwing their bras on stage for you again.”

He points at a pair of underwear hanging off of an empty bottle of champagne. “That’s not an issue.”

“You’re shaving. That’s final.”

She looks down his body again, stretched out on the couch, legs spread wide—and this time, her traveling gaze stops just short of his waistband. _Unfortunate,_ he decides. After so long in her presence, Bellamy had shifted into sort of hoping she’d see how hard he was for her. He wasn’t hiding it now. Whether it annoyed her or led to something more positive, he didn’t care. Win-win.

“At least y-you’ve been consistent at the gym,” Clarke says, stumbling over her words with a surprising lack of deftness as she flicks her eyes up from his abs and back to his face.

“I don’t go to the gym,” he says. “Haven’t set foot in one in months.”

“Really? Then how...”

He points to the door. “You just kicked my personal trainers out.”

“Your--those weren’t--“

“ _Very_ personal trainers.”

It takes a second for it to land. Then: “Oh for fuck’s sake, Blake—“

He smirks. “When you have to hold one hot girl up against a wall with only one arm and your hips because you’re reaching between the other’s legs—“

“Ok, enough!” She closes her eyes, hands up in front of her face to block him out, which allows him the luxury of one long hungry glance up and down her body. “Regardless, I’m just glad I don’t have to get you into the gym.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Are you admitting I look good, and I’d look even better if I shaved and cut my hair? Is that a personal opinion, Griffin?”

Maybe she did travel down past his waistband, then...

Clarke swallows hard and sets her jaw. “Just marching orders. Nothing to do with my opinion. It’s part of the plan.”

“Sure. The plan you said you set up.”

She falters. Girls like her are so easy: they don’t know what to do when they don’t get their way, when they can’t bend everyone else to their will. Princesses. He won’t be so easily played. As she struggles to get her bearings back, Bellamy meets her gaze unflinchingly, giving her one last alluring look. One last invitation. But Clarke Griffin doesn’t budge... even though he reads women better than he can read music and he _swears_ she wants to.

Then he bursts into laughter.

“Fine, fine, sweetheart,” he drawls. “I’ll shave and get a haircut. But first, I’m taking a nap. You can sit here and watch me, or you can go get actual work done and come back when the sun goes down. I’ll be showered and shaved, I swear.”

For a moment, Clarke thinks he’s joking. But he doesn’t move a muscle, save for a cocky half-smile that lifts as realization dawns on her that he won’t be moved, that he really is going to take a nap in sunglasses and underwear after waking up just a half hour ago.

All she can do is shake her head. “Unbelievable. I guess this is what I get for trying to make it in a male-dominated music industry. Babysitter duty for a washed-up, grubby, hungover, hasbeen former rockstar who doesn’t seem to own a shirt.”

Wildly unconcerned, Bellamy stretches out on the destroyed hotel couch, kicks his feet up onto the white leather arm, pushes his sunglasses onto his face, and grabs the vodka bottle from the floor.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Griffin,” he says, and takes a long drink. “I’m not hungover. I’m still fucking drunk.”

She turns on her heel and storms out, to the sound of his raucous laughter. Once the click of her heels has faded down the hallway, he relaxes. Breathes deep.

He thinks about that perfect mouth twisted into a scowl for him. Sighs.

And reaches into his boxers.

 

—————————

 

Thankfully, when next he awakens to a loud pounding on his door, he already knows who it is just by the brashness of the fists. He stumbles over, pulling on actual sweats and a t-shirt he picks up from the ground. He swings the door open to reveal Miller and Shaw, already outraged, already shouting.

“Murphy got fired?” Shaw demands. “What is this? What the fuck? And we’re supposed to leave Vegas in two hours?”

“I have a _date,”_ Miller presses.

Bellamy shrugs. “Label did it, apparently.” He carries the same anger and disbelief that they do, but he’s still half asleep, and he doesn’t like to appear like he’s not in control of something. He’s their fearless leader, he has been for years, dragging their little band from garages in Denver to a sold out European tour. They look to him for things even as small as how to react--so if Bellamy appears relaxed and in control, they’ll relax as well. It’ll make everything easier as he tries to get out from under the twelve-step plan of Clarke Griffin.

_“Mr. Blake.”_

Who has, unfortunately, chosen right now to come striding down the hallway.

“Kill me,” Bellamy groans, squeezing his eyes shut. He had tossed his sunglasses somewhere while tumbling off the couch to answer the door--he has half a mind to go back and get them before Clarke can reach him.

“I see you haven’t picked up a razor,” Clarke says as she reaches them, ignoring the other two and keeping her eyes on Bellamy. She’s wearing exactly what she was wearing earlier today, and not a hair out of place. But Bellamy’s wearing sweats now, so no one can see just how much he likes that dress.

“I just woke up,” Bellamy shoots back. “I told you to come back at night.”

“It’s 8pm.”

He looks back into his hotel room, but the heavy curtains have been drawn all day and he has no way to argue with her. _Shit_. She’s right.

“I’ll get it done,” he grumbles, then takes a deep breath. “Shaw, Miller...this is Clarke Griffin. Griffin, meet the rest of the band.”

Miller appraises Clarke with a curious eye, then turns to Bellamy. “If you’ve got her, you think there’s time for my date before our flight takes off? I only need an hour too.”

“She’s not a prostitute,” Bellamy snaps at him, with surprising force for someone who just a moment ago was groaning about Clarke’s mere presence. “Or a date. She’s from the label, so you can direct your bitching about Murphy and our flight tonight at her. I need to go find a suitcase or something.”

“And a razor,” Clarke reminds his retreating back. Bellamy turns to roll his eyes at her, and he’s surprised to find Clarke smiling pleasantly at Shaw and Miller, reaching to shake their hands. Subconciously, his step slows and his brow furrows as he watches.

“Clarke Griffin,” she says politely. God, she has a nice smile; it lights up her blue eyes. Bellamy’s lips twitch upwards. “Nice to meet both of you; I’ve been a fan since before I started at the label.”

Miller shakes her hand enthusiastically, but Shaw regards Clarke more coldly. “So you’re the one who fired Murphy? What happened to being a fan there, huh?”

“We missed a morning show appearance today apparently,” Bellamy finds himself explaining for Clarke.

Miller winces. “Oh shit, I thought that was yesterday.”

Bellamy looks to Clarke and raises both eyebrows. _See? I’m not the only one._ But any goodwill she showed to Miller and Shaw vanishes when she looks at Bellamy--he almost wants to smile when he sees her withering glare, just so that it’ll annoy her.

“Yes, you missed the morning show,” Clarke explains, finally shifting back to Shaw. “But it’s more than that. Over the past year, Murphy has more or less abandoned his role as manager. He finds partying with you much more enjoyable, and now there’s no one left in charge. That’s what I’m here to rectify. I’m not your manager, but I am here to get you back on track. Which will start in Seattle, where we’re heading as soon as Mr. Blake here is ready to go.”

Bellamy, who stands amid a scene of mass destruction, stares blankly. There’s no way this is getting cleaned up in one night, let alone two hours. He’d be lucky to get all of his own belongings packed in two hours.

“I’m not gonna have time to shave, then,” he points out to Clarke, amused.

She rolls her eyes. “Fine. Just get what you need so we can get on the plane. The sooner I get you guys back in a recording studio making new music, the sooner I get back to my desk job in LA.”

Miller and Shaw, with their bags already packed--they were presumably awake when they received notification they would be flown out of Las Vegas that evening--stand in the doorway with Clarke chatting as Bellamy sifts through the wreckage to pack his bags. He’s so familiar with the sound of their voices that he can’t help but pick out the sound of Clarke’s, just because of its novelty, so he hears snatches of her conversation about her life.

_“Grew up on the East Coast...always loved music...living in LA for ten years now.”_ Just pieces that paint an unsurprising picture. But he has to admit, unlike most girls he knows that fit her profile, Clarke has a unique fire to her, so she must have some kind of origin story. But beyond that, she’s nothing special, and he’ll have her off their backs and back in LA before long.

“Well, I have everything I need,” he says at last, pulling on a jacket and slinging a duffel bag over each shoulder. Clarke nods approvingly, but then looks down at the room around him, still a mess.

“Get that look off your pretty face, sweetheart,” Bellamy assures her. “I called in a favor, I got a guy. No way in hell I’m leaving hotel staff to clean this up.”

“Well then,” Clarke sighs. “Let’s get going.”

 

—————————

 

The private jet awaiting them on the tarmac glitters under the night sky and reflects the faint, far-off neon glow of the Las Vegas Strip. Bellamy has traded his Raybans for aviators, even in the darkness--because loath as he is to admit it, especially to Clarke, he is now hungover and even the faint lights make his head pound worse. He’s also traded his sweats for a leather jacket and black jeans.

Clarke strides ahead of him and his bandmates across the tarmac, reviewing a file of paperwork while she cradles her cell phone with her shoulder and carries on an intense conversation. She’s busy enough to allow Bellamy to luxuriate in the curve of her ass in that dress.

He thinks the sunglasses will cover him, but Shaw knows him better than that.

“C’mon, dude,” he mutters at Bellamy’s shoulder. “She’s already got us on the ropes, we’re being kicked out of Vegas. The label is pissed. You want to mess this all up even more?”

“Who cares?” Bellamy says. But he clenches his teeth and manages to pull his eyes to the plane instead. “We’re set for years with the money we’ve already made. We can do whatever the hell we want.”

“So forget the music?” Shaw just shakes his head and forges on ahead of him. “Don’t blow it. You can find plenty of girls to fuck. We don’t need the label on our case because you keep checking out their employees.”

For the second time today, a pang of guilt twists through him. He’s better than this. He was raised better, and he didn’t get into this business to ogle women and fuck music executives. He looks to the back of the plane where airport workers are loading his instruments into the cargo hold, and for a moment, he considers jogging over and getting his guitar from them.

But he hesitates too long--his ruminations as he walks bring him face to face with Clarke, waiting at the bottom of the steps up to the private jet. His thoughts of his guitar vanish.

She stares up at him, defiant, waiting for whatever cool remark he’s going to fire off.

“After you, Princess,” Bellamy says chivalrously.

“I’d rather not. Go ahead.”

“I insist.”

Rolling her eyes and huffing impatiently, Clarke glides in front of him and hurries up the steps. It’s clear immediately why she doesn’t want to walk up ahead of Bellamy--were he to follow her up, he’d have an unparalleled view of her ass, just inches from his face.

So he doesn’t.

Insead, Bellamy waits at the bottom of the steps, rolling his shoulders, scanning the horizon, until Clarke arrives at the top of the steps and slips past Shaw and Miller onto the plane. Miller follows her in, but Shaw waits until Bellamy looks up at him. He gives an approving nod.

It’s not often they get booked on a private jet. “Way better than a bus,” Miller sighs, as they flop onto leather couches and luxury chairs with massage settings. Bellamy takes up a whole couch himself, stretching out and reclining with a pleased groan. It’s a two and a half hour flight to Seattle, and he’s going to catch up on some sleep.

Clarke clears her throat. He sighs. He’ll catch up on some sleep as soon as she’s done talking.

“We’re getting into Seattle late tonight,” she informs the three of them, taking a seat, crossing her legs primly, and pulling sheets of paper out of her folder. “The hotel’s booked, we can eat on the way from the airport.”

“You still haven’t told us what we’re doing in Seattle,” Miller points out.

“Recuperating,” Clarke says. “You guys need some downtime. We’ve postponed show dates for a while. You’re going to get out of the party mode, maybe do some local events, and start working on your next album.”

“Such bullshit,” Bellamy grunts at the ceiling.

“Also,” she adds, specifically looking at Bellamy now. “Tomorrow, I have you booked with a stylist.”

She is grating on his nerves now. He has dealt with his fair share of divas and Instagram models and stuck up corporate types, but this girl is a rare blend of confident, uptight, ambitious, and gorgeous, capped off with a take-no-shit attitude that absolutely infuriates him. She’ll take no shit, but make his life hell--and nothing works on her. No charm, not intimidation, not carelessness. She’s plowing ahead and dragging him with her. Feeling out of control is his least favorite sensation in the world, and it has been made even worse that all control has been seized by this icy-cool, unruffled, bossy woman who could double as a lingerie model.

He clenches his jaw to maintain his cool, feeling the muscles bunch, and takes a deep breath to utter just two words: “Whatever, Princess.”

Shaw and Miller aren’t too enthused about Clarke’s proposed regimen, but when they see Bellamy brush it off, they have no choice but to do so as well, slumping down in their chairs and kicking their legs up as the plane takes off.

Bellamy stews. He can’t get his mind off Clarke. By the absence of her perfume, he can tell she’s migrated somewhere towards the cockpit. He steadies his breathing. In. Out. For about a week in college, he took a meditation class for the express purpose of getting into the yoga pants of the hot instructor. All he remembers is the breathing. He tries to repeat it now. In. Out.

Then again, that meditation class had ended in sex and he never went back to learn anything else and before he knows it, he’s on his feet and heading for the front of the plane. Clarke’s sitting alone, reviewing some other documents.

He drops into the chair opposite her.

“What’s your problem with me?” Bellamy asks her quietly.

Clarke raises a questioning eyebrow. “My problem with you?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Her voice is cool, composed.

He takes a steadying breath to stem the quick spike of irritation in his chest. He’s not going to let her brush this off. Checking over his shoulder to ensure that Shaw and Miller are sleeping with their headphones on, Bellamy shifts to the edge of his seat and leans closer to Clarke, lowering his voice.

“You were so good to Miller and Shaw when you met them, but from the moment you met me, you were at my throat,” Bellamy whispers, hissing through gritted teeth. “Why?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I have a job to do, I’ll motivate you however you need. It’s not personal.”

He’s simmering dangerously. “Don’t give me that. It’s obviously personal.”

She works her tongue against the back of her teeth, and through her thin facade of composure, he can see the heat building there too. He teases it out, with a twitch of his lips and a darkening of his gaze, a challenge. A show of arrogance.

And she snaps--in a heartbeat, Clarke matches him, inch for inch: she leans forward in her seat and shows her teeth and threatens him with an icy cold stare. “You know what? Fine,”  she snarls. “Maybe I was cool with Miller and Shaw because when I first met them, they were fully clothed. Maybe it’s because I don’t play nicely with cocksure rock stars who think they’re invincible. Maybe it’s because I see harder working people than you get passed over everyday because they didn’t get as lucky as you. And here you are, throwing it away.”

“I’ve worked for everything I have,” Bellamy fires back. He gets closer. “This isn’t luck. I’m fucking good at what I do, Griffin, and I’ve worked my ass off for it.”

She still does not back down. If anything, she’s leaning closer, within touching distance, within _breathing_ distance--he can feel her every hot, angry exhale dusting over his face as she fights to keep her emotions in check and her voice down. If he were to pitch forward, or if the plane were to hit turbulence, they’d be skin to skin, lips together, tongues in open mouths, and the thought sets him on fire. Mingled arousal and anger and indignation course through his veins, boiling his blood and pumping his heart against his chest. He hasn’t wanted like this in years, not with anyone--the desperate, grasping hunger so consuming that he could take what he wants for the rest of his life and still not feel satisfied.

It is one hell of a lightning bolt when it hits him.

He can’t read Clarke’s stormy face through his own red haze--he doesn’t even realize when she suddenly turns cool again, sitting back, sucking in a breath of air. Only the sudden void of her presence so close to him has any effect; it jars him back to the present and the rush of cool air that hits him feels like someone just opened the door of the plane.

She’s out of breath, as if they really were pressed together, grinding together, and he delights in the way she tries to steady her breathing and hide the way she lost her composure. Clarke sends a furtive glance over his shoulder at the still sleeping bandmates in the other chairs, then focuses on Bellamy once more. There’s a softness to her face, as much as she tries to set her jaw.

“I’m telling you. I’m here to help you get your shit together, and then I’m back to my life in LA. It’s not personal.”

Calling her bluff without a word, Bellamy sits back as Clarke undoes her seatbelt and stomps off to find a new seat.

He likes this girl. Just as much as he hates her.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m working on getting a fandom-specific social media (re: trying to motivate myself into it) so until then, let me know what you think here, and let me know what you’d like to see in this story!! I have plennnnnty of ideas but crowdsourcing creativity for shirtless sweaty reckless rockstar Bellamy and Clarke “I’m being professional and pretending I didn’t see how big your dick is” Griffin is bound to result in some awesome scenes I would love to write.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Let’s talk!


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